


Living in Cavendish, Longing for the Cavern

by waveofahand



Category: McLennon - Fandom, The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, But first there is a big big fight, Drunkeness, John and Paul are really fighting, John's a jealous guy, M/M, Paul is struggling, So much angst, Threats of Violence, romance later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-21 21:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveofahand/pseuds/waveofahand
Summary: John Lennon is a surly, angry, sloppy drunk who has just realized that the dream he achieved has left him miserable, that he is living in the suburbs with Cynthia and will probably never have the life he really wants. It's pretty angsty, both for him, and for Paul McCartney.





	1. "Let's Go Home, John, You're Drunk!"

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely a work of fiction. I don't own the Beatles, and have no idea if anything like this ever happened in their lives.

**One Night in October, 1965**

"And another thing!" John Lennon was having trouble finishing his thought while Paul was pulling him along by his wrist. "An-and 'nother thing! I didn't like the way he was lookin' at you."

"No one was looking at me, John, you're imagining it. Again."

"No, I am not." John insisted loudly. "That, I am not. He was lookin' at you like you were dessert. Like you were candy and h-he was a 9 year old boy with a bob in his pocket ready to buy you."

“_Who_?” Paul demanded. “Who are you talking about?”

“That Fraser. That ‘Groovy Bob’. Ugh, _Groooovy_.” John rolled the word around on his tongue with a face suggesting he’d sipped a bad wine. “S’not even a word.”

"He wasn't. And anyway, John, I can't control how people look at me. And for that matter, and you well know it, I’m not for sale."

"Oh, yes you can!" John argued, ignoring Paul's last point (which was true enough), in order to continue pandering to his own loud and indiscreet rage. He didn't care. John was too jealous, too furious and too drunk to worry whether anyone could hear as Paul steered him out into the London night and walked them back to his car. "Oh, yes you can! You can help how people look at you. You jus'...you just don't care. You go around lookin' like that and when these fuckers make drool all over you and have to keep their legs crossed because they can' even control their undersized tink-tinkles, and you…you fuckin' _love_ it!”

“I don’t go around looking like anything, John. Stop it, now.”

“You go ‘roun’ like ya are tonight, with your dark suit and that tie. Put the rest of us in a suit we look like scruffs in suits, which is all we are. But you put one on an-an’ suddenly you look...y-you look. Like _that._” John stopped and frankly stared at Paul, looking him up and down hungrily as he swayed. "Like _that!_ You look like you belong with all the toffs. You look like you’re their fucking _king_, you do. Swinging London! Fucking losers. We used to laugh at people like them, Paul, and now you’re their King.”

“I’m just me, John. Can’t help it if I like to go out, sometimes.” Paul took John’s hand this time, not just his wrist. “Come on, my car’s just over here.”

“That fucking William Morris flowery black and white tie!”

Paul couldn’t help chuckling a little as John’s ragged scorn seemed to be taking aim at Paul’s poor haberdasher.“What about my tie?” He asked.

“You _love_ that tie. You wear it all the time.”

Paul opened the door to his car, and pulled John up to it. He smiled at him, straightening the typically ruffled lapels of John's jacket as they stood together between the car and its open door. “I _like_ my tie,” Paul corrected. “I don’t love it. It’s just a thing, you know.. Can’t love a thing.”

John was swaying again. He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head as though to clear his thoughts. When he opened them, his expression had changed from one of deep fury to something suggesting a woe-begotten sense of longing. There was real anguish behind his eyes. “Aye, you can’t love a…You don’t love anything. Or anyone. Not even me. You can’t love anyone, can you? Not Dot. You never loved her. Not Jane. Not me. You can't love me, either, can you?”

“John…” Paul started. But his partner had clumsily sat himself in the passenger seat of Paul’s car and closed the door. He was sitting back, eyes closed to the world and everything in it. The hurtful world. His hurtful Paul.

McCartney stood there a moment, lighting a cigarette and just looking at John through the window, his full lips pressed into a thin line of frustration. This wasn’t working. Things had been strained between them ever since John had moved out to Weybridge and fallen into a stupor of suburban boredom, relieved only by acid.

He clearly hated it, there. John hated his whole situation, Paul knew. Being married, being a father, living in the “dream” mansion. A big, ill-fitted adjustment for a man whose headiest and happiest days had involved carousing from pub to pub and sleeping in Hamburg filth with his best mate. Lennon was a hardscrabble rock-and-roll star living the life of an upscale (and uptight) banker, and he hated it. And he hated himself for his own inability to say ‘no’ when Brian had pushed the move, and when Cynthia had fallen in love with that huge empty house -- big enough for her mother to move in with them, for Christ's sake!

Cyn had become captivated by the house (so far away from Paul, so far away from all temptation), and the unreasonable idea that John could ever live there comfortably, in some pretense of a happy life. He hated himself for not arguing harder for a house in London, where he and Paul could still see each other, every day, work with each other, every day, just...still _be with each other_, every day, _JohnandPaul_, like always. That was the life he wanted. The life he had...it was beginning to make him — on some level that remained unexplored — resent his wife, and his son.

It was beginning to make him resent Paul, too — Paul could feel it. John was angry that Paul had rejected the idea of residing anywhere else but London and was now living the life John wanted: urban and urbane, with clubs to go to, book-readings to attend followed by interesting discussions led by active minds. New ideas. John had always worn the mantle of the “Intellectual Beatle” and yet here he was, growing stale and sour in the suburbs, watching Paul live the life — choosing to live _that_ life, when he could have bought a house three doors down from John.

Paul could see his own frown deepening in the reflection from his car window. He finished his ciggie and tossed it away, mentally preparing himself for the refreshed verbal onslaught that would come his way as soon as he got behind the wheel of his car.


	2. "We're on our Way Home"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul is driving. John is driving him mad. On a dark night, it's one hell of a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arguments between lovers are not always linear, especially if the relationship is fraught with complexities, as this one is. Sometimes a partner will say things he doesn't mean, or another one will overact or even willfully misunderstand. I hope this McLennon battle accurately reflects that and sounds true to the reader. Will appreciate your thoughts.

Paul expected his partner to erupt the moment he put the key into the ignition, but John seemed asleep. He was still slouched in his seat, eyes closed, and Paul thought a snoozing John would be a good thing – get him back to Cynthia in a somewhat-sobered, if bleary, state and help him up to bed. Everything would be better in the morning, yeah? Back to normal?

Five minutes into the ride, he knew his hope was foolish. He could sense John’s simmering anger, could feel his partner’s eyes on him, just waiting for Paul to glance his way.

Paul stared straight ahead, preferring to keep his eyes on the road. He already knew what Lennon looked like when he was gunning for a fight.

It had begun to rain – one of those sudden downpours that happen when you live on an island at the edge of an ocean. Paul turned on the wipers and then, quite deliberately – and knowing it would infuriate John – he turned on the radio, and turned up the volume. Herman’s Hermits, _I’m Henry the VIII. _

_No._ He flipped the dial. “I can’t get no satisfaction…” blared the Rolling Stones. _Right there with you, Mick,_ Paul thought, _but no, not tonight_.

He flipped again.

_You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips_ _  
And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips_

Ah, Righteous Brothers. Blue-eyed soul out of America, telling it like it is. Paul settled back as he merged into traffic. That would do. “Sing it, boys,” he said softly.

_Click._ Wordlessly, John had reached over and shut it down.

Tightening his jaw, Paul turned it back on.

_Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you_  
_And now you're starting to criticize little things I do_  
_It makes me just feel like cryin’_  
_'Cause baby, something beautiful's dyin'_

Again, John reached over, meaning to turn it off. Paul’s hand grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

“Stop, John. I want to hear the song.” He was doing his best to keep his voice level and his temper in check.

“Well, I don’t,” John snarled, reaching with the other hand.

“I’m sorry that the world isn’t all about what John Lennon wants. You ride with me, you listen to my choices.”

“Who said I wanted to fucking _ride with you_? Who asked you to drive me anywhere? Just take me back to the club, then.” John’s flinty, scotch-enhanced anger sent flecks of spittle as it broke forth. He looked out the windshield, blinking and blind. “And where the fuck’r we goin’, anyway?”

“Well, now, that’s a question for the ages, isn’t it?” Paul answered quietly, while Bill Medley sang out. "Where_ are_ we going?"

_Baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you_ _  
If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah_

“Fuckin’ arse,” John raged, to no one in particular, or to everyone – to the air, to Medley, to the radio. To Paul.

_We had a love, a love, a love you don't find everyday_

This time, when John reached out, Paul let him turn it off. _Maybe should have stuck with Herman’s Hermits after all,_ he thought. He sighed and peered out into the night, beyond the windshield, beyond John and his wrath, and couldn’t remember when he’d felt so miserable. The Beatles were on top of the world. Their songs were dominating every other act – Paul was pretty sure they were Number One again this week on the U.S. Charts – and Brian had just told them they’d been included in Her Majesty’s list. In mere days, John, Paul, George and Ringo would carry post-nominals reading MBE, behind them. They would be called Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, for the rest of their lives.

Not bad for four convention-hating lads from Liverpool. The whole band should have been feeling euphoric, and maybe the others were, but Paul was just feeling harassed and lonely.

The loneliness surprised him, because he’d not felt the least bit lonely for years, now – ever since he had met John. Well, there was that period, after Julia died, where John had shut him out – had turned to Stu. Yeah, that had been lonely. That had hurt. On some level, it always would.

But Paul tried not to look back too hard, or dwell on past things. Now, he was living with Jane, and getting ready to renovate a lovely old house to share with her. And he had the band, and the accolades of the world as they played to unprecedented crowds in sports arenas – _stadiums_, for God’s sake! And he had all of “swinging London” at his feet.

And he had _John_. Most importantly, he had John.

And yet at that moment he almost – almost – wished he were back in Liverpool, finding a nice bird to marry, and re-reading Chaucer in Old English by a fire, and preparing to be a teacher, maybe playing in local pubs for fun -- just running through his own songs, for a few attentive ears – people who actually listened.

_Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…_

The idea sounded nice. Ideal and romantic and Peaceful-like.

Because fame could be so noisy, sometimes. So demanding and unrelenting.

Just like John.

Well. He had fame; he had John. In them, if he was being honest, he had all he’d ever actually wanted. And yet, it was all beginning to feel like too much.

“I asked you where you were taking me, Paul,” John said in a quiet voice that promised danger.

“You’re tellin’ me you don’t know your own way home, are you? We’re halfway there.”

“To Weybridge? No, stop,” John barked. “Turn it around. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go to mine. I thought we were going to go to yours!”

“I don’t know why you’d think that.”

“Because…because you bleedin’ thick sod, Jane’s away! And I don’t want to go home! It’s our chance to be together, and those times come few and far between anymore, son.”

Paul waited for the inevitable joke about ‘coming’ and how far their respective orgasms might travel, but it went undelivered which, given this was John beside him, was shocking.

He finally turned his head to look at Lennon, who was staring at him, and hard, his face flushed with drink, his eyes full of familiar longing. “C’mon, Paulie, love. Turn the car 'round. Please? They’ve not started workin’ on the house yet, have they? You’ve still got that bedroom set up? It’s been two weeks, now. I miss you.”

“It’s always difficult when we’re not on tour,” Paul murmured. “Harder to be together.”

“It didn’t have to be.”

Paul sighed, keeping his eyes on the road, not wanting to start up this fight again, as though he had to justify being 23 years-old and unmarried, and thus better suited to London. “No, but perhaps it needs to be. I’m taking you home, and tomorrow you’re going to wake up and Cyn will be there, waiting on you hand and foot, and Jules will jump onto you and be so happy to have you there. And they deserve to come first, sometimes, don’t they? Before what either you or I want?”

“Well, doesn’t that just sound like a perfectly Paulie little daydream,” John sneered. “All noble self-sacrifice! A scene right out of a Sunday pastoral, so wholesome I could just puke! The happy little family; the white clapboard house –"

“They’ve more rights to you than I do, don’t they?” Paul surprised himself with the question, and disliked it instantly. _Where the fuck did that come from?_ He pressed down on the accelerator, speeding up.

“What the fuck do rights have to do with anything, and where the hell did that _come_ from, anyway," John thundered, not knowing he was echoing his partner's own bewildered thought. "You take up with your London court and suddenly you’re a moralist? You’ve fucked me from Paris to Hamburg to Rome and sucked my cock throughout North America! You’ve tied me up and plowed me until I’ve howled like a banshee out to slay the world -- and that more than once -- and bitten me bloody, and _now_ you’re worried about whether Cyn has some claim on me beyond the one you’ve always had? The claim I put right into your hands when you were still a lad? I’ve known you for a lot of things, Macca, but hypocrisy was never one of them. Since when does guilt come into any of this?” Lennon narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t by any chance talk to your father today, did you, let old Jim have at you?”

“Christ, John, stop with that old gag, would you? I’m not moralizing. I’m just…”

“You’re just what? Telling me you’ve had enough? That you have your pick of the finest asses in London and you don’t want mine anymore? That you don’t need me in your bed when Groovy Bob is just a few posh neighborhoods away, and Jane is there whenever you prefer some ginger pussy, and..and…and you can play both sides in a single evening? Is that what you’re saying Paul?” John was yelling outright, now, nearly bawling as his insecurities came forward, showing with them a naked panic Paul never meant for John to feel.

“Stop, John, you know it’s not true.”

“Come on, Paul!” He was fully turned toward him, now, pulling on the shoulder of his jacket, his voice breaking as he began to beg. “Come on, please, _Paulie_.” Another tug, this one hard, pulling a hand off the steering wheel. “Paulie, turn the car around! Take me to yours. Please. I want to wake up with you tomorrow! Let’s go to yours!”

He was driving too fast, on roads too slick. As John tugged at him, Paul could feel himself take a curve too quickly, and it shook him. A needy John Lennon was always unsafe at any speed, but especially on a rainy night full of tree-lined rural paths. It would be too easy to lose control. And besides, Paul’s own ragged emotions were coming to the surface, whether he wanted them to or not. He’d never meant to trigger John’s always-simmering fear of being abandoned, but he’d done it just the same, and he felt awful about it. Usually more than able to keep John on a level keel -- it had been his job for so long! -- he felt like tonight he wasn't handling anything well, as though he and Lennon were both close to crashing. 

There was no driving like this. He slowed the car, pulling it between a boulder and a beech tree. _Between a rock and a hard place_, he thought to himself, feeling trapped by guilt. Trapped by love, too, which shouldn’t be _this_ hard, should it?

“Why aren’t you turning around,” John asked, nearly manic in the single-minded, obsessive thought. “Why are you stopping? Are you leaving me here? Paul? Are you leaving me?”

John was nearly whimpering, and Paul's gut tightened to see how saturated John was with his old anxieties, how terrorized he still was thanks to his damned, fucked-up parents. He knew his partner, usually observant as an owl, was right now too wrapped up in his own fear to notice how Paul’s hands shook as he brought a cigarette to his lips and lit it, even before turning off the ignition, and looked his way. Meaning to speak in as controlled and gentle a voice as he could manage, Paul exhaled. 

“Baby," he began. "You’ve got to stop this.”

He'd lowered his head and was peering at Lennon through his eyelashes, a gesture which, Paul had learned over the years, always managed to bring John down a rung or two from his frenzied heights. “You know I would never abandon you at the side of a road. Or _anywhere_. I’m not Julia. I’m not Freddie, and I will never leave you alone. Not ever, Johnny. You _know_ that, don’t you? You must do.”

He wolfed down another puff and offered the stick to John, glad to see him take it, even as he _did_ notice John’s trembling and winced to see it. Paul wanted to kick himself. _Stupid, stupid. Idiot, to get him so worked up with your clumsy words!_

John tugged hugely on the cigarette, looking away from Paul, feeling humiliated, as he always did, after so quickly showing the raw fear that ruled him to his very roots and could come up and strangle him in a nanosecond. Sometimes all it took was an angry look, and he'd become wrapped up in dread, certain that whoever he'd annoyed was about to leave him, and if that person was Paul, it was all the worse. He couldn't lose Macca. It would be his end, he knew. There would be no coming back from losing him. John was a beggar for Paul. A begger for the sure and stable thing, which Paul had always been for him. All of John's weaknesses were transparent to Macca, and always had been, because John had loved him instantly and with his whole heart the day he'd set eyes on his doe-eyed lad, and from that moment he'd never been able to hide any part of himself from Paul. And sometimes he hated both of them for that truth. 

He couldn't help it, though. The lad was everything to him. _Everything_. Had [been everything to him since he lost Julia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182481/chapters/45597766). Even before that, truth be told. And tonight, at the club, it was too much to watch all the birds thrusting their chests at him, all the poofs eyeing Paul or touching his arm, his back, his knees, all but salivating around him – Paul, who belonged to him, who’d _said_ so, promised it, [in Paris and so many times](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119496) since then.

_Baby says he’s mine you know, he tells me all the time, you know, he says so…_

I’m in love with him, John thought to himself, one hand propping up his head, as he smoked and felt himself begin to calm down. I’m in love with him, but I don’t feel fine_._ And he never tells me that, anymore. Hasn’t said the words in what feels like years.

“I don’t…” John started, finally daring to raise his eyes, but focusing somewhere along Paul’s chest. Near his heart. Watching Paul breathe, so calm. He seemed so rock steady, as usual. Nothing ever touched him, did it? Like a machine. Except a machine couldn't be so... so Paul. 

He handed back the cigarette and tried again. “I don’t understand what I did to... to make you push me away, like this -- why you didn’t want to take me to yours. Why you insist on Weybridge. And don’t tell me it’s because you are respecting Cyn’s ‘rights’.” He finally met Paul’s eyes. “I know it twinges you now and then, but you’ve always gotten past that.”

“Mm,” Paul managed a nod as he puffed and looked away. “You were mine first, you know, so I can. Get past it.” He rushed on, not wanting to get hung up on that thought, and the backlog of inconvenient feelings behind it. “But _twinge_ is a good word. It’s never been as easy as you think, you know. Don’t get me wrong, I love Cynthia and God, John, I’d die for Jules like he’s my own son. But you're not the only one who can feel possessive, you know? Sometimes I'm resentful, I'll admit it. Even if you are mine, now you’re theirs – legally, officially. In the flesh and bones of it especially, you’re _theirs_.”

“But not in the spirit of it.” John said softly.

“And I’m a fucking liar, anyway,” Paul continued, purposely ignoring John as he brushed a bit of ash from his cuff. “I wasn’t taking you home because you belong to Cyn – even if you do.”

_I don’t, no I don’t_, John wanted to scream. But he decided to listen, for once. "Then why, Paul? I feel like... you don't want me."

Paul felt nailed to the wall by John's words, and by the little-boy-lost tone coming from him. It was authentic, and full of pain, and he had caused it. 

"I will never not want you, John." Too impatient, Paul knew. He sounded too impatient, and John had flinched. He tried to gentle his voice. "When will you believe that, eh?"

"You don't want me tonight. You're taking me to Weybridge because you don't want me tonight." John turned his head as his eyes began to tear. "Even now, you're just sitting there. You're not even touching me."

_Shit_. Paul cursed at himself and turned to look out at the rain. John was right. By now, at this point in any fight Paul would be reaching out, touching John, finding a way to get things settled between them as quickly as possible, to get away from all of this damned angst and drama, which he'd never liked.

But he couldn't do that. Not yet. Being tender with John right now would mean being dishonest. It would mean shoving tonight's latest shit on top of all the shit he'd been sitting on for years, and it couldn't continue. He was feeling too lonely for it continue -- for John to always be permitted his rages, while his own were internalized into denial. He needed his partner to understand him, finally, to know he needed a little consideration sometimes, too. 

“You're right," Paul said. "I'm not touching you, yet. And yes, I guess I was pushing you away, a little, by bringing you to yours. I'll give you that." He lit another cigarette, hoping it would hold him steady, but at he looked at John's wounded posture, his annoyance rose. He couldn't take being made to feel guilty for being angry. It was a reasonable anger, and Paul felt himself bristling to remember the words that had felt like such a dishonest assault.

"I just got so fucking mad at you, Johnny," he finally admitted. And the words felt like the unlatching of a floodgate as it all tumbled out of him. "I’m so tired of the shit you say to me, and how you just think I should _let_ you say any outrageous, nasty thing you want. How dare, you? After all these years, how fucking dare you run your mouth like that, and suggest I would ever be with Robert when I have _never_ cheated on you, and never would want to! I have no interest in any other man but you, and if you fucking don’t know that by now…” Paul released his breath slowly. “And, the spiteful shit you threw at me – do you really think I see myself as some fucking 'King of the Night', swanking about looking for glory? I’ve had all the glory I can stand for a while --”

“How dare I?” John interrupted, rather insulted by Paul's unusual and forthright anger. “I _watched_ you in that club, glad-handing everyone, being everyone’s best mate, listening to all their stupid ideas and opinions like they meant anything. You had the birds throwing themselves at you -- practically coming in your lap, they were -- and then…do you honestly not see the way Fraser looks at you? Like he’s starving man whose got a juicy roast before his eyes, and all he has to do is pull it toward his plate?”

“It doesn’t matter - .” Paul felt his anger rising again as John’s jealousy came out.

“Oh, so you _have_ seen it!" John sounded a triumph. "And yes, it fucking matters, Paul!” John shouted. “It matters to me! It’s like the British Embassy in America all over again – fucking poofs and oily old toffs grabbing at you, sliding their hands on you, all but shoving their fingers up your arse. Except back then you’d handled them like a pro. You just plopped yourself down on the staircase, which made everyone watch, and dared them to continue while all exposed like that. Tonight, you just let them…you let them…treat you like meat.”

“Oh, which is it, now,” Paul sneered, “Was I letting them treat me like a king or a piece of meat? Can’t be both, you know. You’re jealous again, John, you’re out of control with it and since there is no one around for you to punch about it, you'll just take it out on me, as usual.”

“I’m not jealous –.”

“Please, John, don’t lie, you’re jealous _by definition_. You’re jealous of anyone who so much as _looks_ at me. Or at Cynthia. You’re jealous of Jane, that she's part of my life. And you’re jealous that I’m going to shows, and can walk to a bookshop and find someone interesting to talk to. You’re jealous that I can go to concerts any night, on a whim, instead of waiting to see what the BBC is serving up.”  
  
Paul knew he should stop there -- that he'd already hit the nail on the head enough times. But he just couldn't. He was too angry to just shrug this off, and so he dared to hammer it home, even if it was a truth too far. “You’re jealous that I’m not answerable to anyone,” he said. “Not even to you – and that I’m living in London and not trapped in an empty house I hate, as you are, with nothing to do at night but look at four walls -- and the wife you like but don’t love, and the baby you love but don’t like.”

In the cramped car, he saw John’s fist formed, but unable to be drawn fully back. He was able to catch the blow before it struck. But the very _fact_ of that fist lit Paul’s fury.

“You’re gonna _hit_ me, now?” Paul shouted. “That’s all it needs, isn’t it, Lennon? Not enough to fucking wallow in jealousy after all the bad choices you’ve made – that _you’ve_ made, by the way, your own self! Now let’s beat up Macca, because you _love_ him so much! Let’s flay the only one who really knows you and will still love you – the only one will ever tell you the truth. Put me in the hospital like you did Bob Wooler, then, why don't you? That’ll make me love you more, _eh, Johnny? _That’ll make me_ stay?_”

John had regretted the fist the instant he’d shown it, but it was too late. Paul was as angry as John had ever seen him -- panting with rage, and justified in it, too. And when Paul had finally had enough, when his slow fuse was finally lit, he could strike at one’s soft underbelly as viciously as John ever would, or could, himself. He'd just proved it, and he wasn't finished, yet.

“You push, and you push, John, and test me, and then you push a little more, to see how far you can go! And then when a person’s had enough – when self-respect would fucking demand that any sane person walk away, so they do -- you get to cry foul and play the victim! ‘See, everybody leaves me, poor me!’” Paul seethed at him through gritted teeth. “There’s a _line_, John. I don’t know where it is yet, because somehow, by some utter miracle of God, you haven’t crossed it with me up to now. But use your hands on me, and we might find it. I’m telling you, mate, don’t ever test me with your fists. I don’t think you’d like where that goes.”

The rain had turned into a mizzle and the moon was peering through the light clouds. Too angry to remain still, Paul jumped out of the car, slamming the door and stalking off toward the trees.

John leapt out to follow, also slamming the door, for effect.

“That’s right, run away. That’s what you’re good at. You just said you’d never leave me --”

_The infuriating, self-obsessed fucker!_ McCartney stormed back, getting right into Lennon’s face with one shaking finger. “And I hope I never do, John, but if you think you can beat me into being whatever it is you need --”

“I’m sorry…” John grabbed Paul’s hand, stilling it and holding on. “I’m sorry I did that, Paul. I – it was…I didn’t mean it,” he rushed. “I was never so glad as when you stayed my hand, because if I’d have hit you, I’d never have forgiven myself.”

Paul huffed out a sigh. He could read the sincerity, and the alarm, in John’s eyes – the worry that he’d truly fucked things up, this time. He willed himself to relax his frown, hoping John could see it in the moonlight.

“I mean it,” his partner insisted, still clinging to Paul’s hand, “Paulie, I’d kill myself for it, if I ever hit you.”

“Well, let’s not do _that_,” Paul replied softly, patting John’s shoulder and offering him a small, conciliating grin.

Foolishly, John Lennon never knew when to let a good moment be, though. Never knew how to apologize without shifting the blame. “It only happened because of what you said – about me not loving Cyn, and not liking Jules!”

“Right, there we go,” Paul turned on his heel and started pacing, circling the car. “It’s my fault. Again! You almost punched me, because I told you the truth. How _awful_ for you.” He turned toward John, his arms splayed forward as he offered a bow of sarcastic obeisance. “Let me clarify, Your Lordship! You _love_ Cynthia, but like a sister, and you _like_ Julian, but you don’t get him, because you don’t get any kid. Is that better? Is my language _precise_ enough for you?”

It was. John frowned. He looked at his shoes, unable to wholly disagree with anything Paul had said. “Can’t say it doesn’t sting to hear, you know.” 

“Not my fault if it does, though, eh?” Paul said sharply.

John shrugged, feeling defeated. He hated it whenever the McCartney actively engaged his own anger. He became too hard, too formidable. Too scornfully accurate. He was supposed to be the easy one to handle. This wasn't feeling easy.

“You know, normally, I wouldn’t say this, mate, I wouldn't bring it up,” Paul continued in a more level tone as he strolled up to John who noticed that -- tone aside -- Macca's eyes were still black with determination, his brows still pulled forward and down. “But I’m not quite ready to let you off the hook just yet. You think what I said was harsh? Aye, maybe it was. _Mea culpa_ and all apologies. But it was only true, as you all-but admit. Still…”

Here it comes, John thought.

“Still, you said something every bit as cutting, and maybe moreso, to me back in London, didn’t you? And you’ll notice, I didn’t come at you over it, even though you spoke lies.”

Paul’s voice was rising again, getting louder as the sky cleared, and threatening to echo in the glen. He couldn’t help it. He’d looked past too many of these episodes, before, going along to get along, and tonight he couldn’t seem to hold back. “You wanted to punch me, just now, aye? Well, I guess I understand the feeling, John, because before we headed out here I wanted the same thing. For once, I wanted to fucking strike you -- to slap your face until you bled for how you spoke to me, until that ugly mouth of yours was too swollen to say another word. You don't know how I wanted to! But I didn’t. I just decided to take you home. To _yours_, not to mine, though, yes. And do you really want to know why? Why I 'pushed you away' as you so rightly said?"

Paul stopped pacing. He was standing exactly before John. They were eyeball-to-eyeball, and John didn't think he wanted to know, after all, but Macca was leaning in now, spitting it out between his gritted teeth, his voice quiet and low.

"I pushed you away, John, because, after being told I was a stuck-up climber who couldn't love anything, or anybody? _I didn’t want you in my bed. _Why would I?”

The words came at Lennon like a thunderclap right over his heart. He felt himself stagger and closed his eyes, wincing. “I didn’t say --”

“Oh, yes you did, boyo, _oh yes you fucking did_.” The finger was back in John's face, and Paul was burning scarlet. He had flamed back into a full rant in mere seconds, his resentment still unspent but finally releasing itself, showing itself in full. “You took that fucking laser beam of scorn you carry around with you every waking moment, and you pointed it right at my heart and then you pushed that button, didn’t you? Told me I never loved Dot, that I don’t love Jane, that I _can’t_ love you. Well, _fuck you_, John. Fuck you! Go fuck yourself!”


	3. I Know (I Know)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We rejoin our heroes as they pace and argue on the side of the road, stuck halfway between Weybridge and Cavendish as they try to work things through.

_Go fuck yourself._

The words made John gasp. He'd heard them before from Paul's lips, but always in jest, as a comeback for John's teasing. This was different. John had hit too far below the belt, or whatever that boxing phrase was, and Paul was saying it like he meant it. 

It was unbearable to think he meant it. If he meant it...well, John didn't want to think about where that might go. It might go all the way [to going away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133452).

“I’d been drinking, Paul.”

His partner rolled his eyes. But of course. As though having a few drinks entitled one to brutalize someone else's life, someone else's choices, at will. 

“I don’t want another bleedin’ excuse from you, John Lennon. Just own what you did, own your own filthy tongue, for once in your life. Own your lies.”

“But you _didn’t_ love Dot, Paul, you didn't. That's the truth! As soon as she lost the baby, you broke up with her. You never wanted it and when she lost it, you just brought her some flowers and broke it off before she could miss another period.”

“I was a kid, John, with no way to support a family! I’d have had to give up the band, go off to twist wires for the rest of me life! Wouldn’t have even had the option of tryin’ to be a teacher. Of _course_ I was relieved when she lost the baby! Doesn't mean I didn't love her! It was sad, but how ever the fuck was I supposed to marry her and raise it?”

“I did it! Why couldn’t you?” John said, coming chest-to-chest with Paul. “You act like you love kids, and yeah, you're great with Jules, but...Macca, you’ve been droppin’ wains all over Europe – Germany, France, the whole fecking United Kingdom, you have, and taken responsibility for none of ‘em.”

“That’s not true, either --” Paul started.

“Oh, I forgot, you’re payin’ off the German one, aren't you, although I don’t know why they haven’t renamed Hamburg for you, yet. In twenty years they’re going to find themselves full of black-haired, round-eyed waitresses and prostitutes, they are. And let’s not even talk about America. After last tour, they’re going to have to rename a whole state -- Michigan or Minnesota or whatever it is -- and call it Maccachusetts!”

“As though it’s not the same for you, John -- for the both of us! We both have our share of birds on the road. We both get mailbags full of letters that go, ‘You might not remember me, but when you played in my city you took my virginity and now I’m pregnant and here is a picture of our other baby, who looks just like you, and he’s 5 years-old!”

“Yeah, okay, but when it happened to me, when it _really_ happened, I stepped up, like a man, and I _married_ Cyn.”

“It was different for you,” Paul spat out. “You were older, the band was established, and you had Brian’s help. All I had was my dad, all but begging me to marry Dot right away, all but begging me to glue myself to him and to Liverpool for the rest of my life. Or do you think even now, at this stage, if Jane caught a baby I’d not marry her?”

“I dunno, Paul, would you?”

“Of course I would! And I do love kids! I couldn't believe you even said that!”

“You do, aye, then. You don’t love Jane, though.”

“Stop saying that,” Paul thundered. “I do love Jane, even if I love --” He stopped himself before he could finish the sentence. Before he could say “_you more_” and give John something to needle him with for the rest of their lives.

_In my life, I've loved you more..._

“Even if I didn’t,” he corrected, “I’d marry her. I’d want to raise my child.”

John grunted skeptically. “Think you’d be happy with her, do you, when she left you and the kid to go trot off with all the thespians? Because she's ambitious, you know. She won't sit in a big house, like Cyn, and wait for you. And when her daddy and mummy are forever dropping in, telling you how to bring up your little redheaded nipper according to this week’s psychological dictate? You gonna like that?”

Paul sighed, shooting him a look. “I think I’d be at least as happy as you, John. At _least _as happy, and likely more. And I’m not sure why we’re comparing notes on which of us would be a worse husband in an unhappy marriage. This is getting stupid, now.”

John fought back a smile, not quite succeeding. “It’s not the first stupid fight we’ve ever had, love.”

“I suppose not,” Paul looked back, feeling spent. He headed back to the car. “Come on, the rain’s passed. Let’s get you home. I'm tired of fighting with you, now. Feeling knackered, anyroad.”

“Home, _where_,” John asked, grabbing at Paul’s hand and sounding anxious again. “Home yours, right?”

“I think…John, I’m sorry but this hasn't been fun. I think home _yours_, tonight.”

Still holding on to Paul’s hand, John pulled his partner closer, and Paul allowed it. “Well...well..." He took Paul's other hand. "But that’s alright, then, yeah? Because you’re my home, Macca. So…if you’re going to yours, and I’m going to mine…seems we’re headed in the same direction. Please?”

"No, John, not this time - "

"Paulie..._please?_"

Paul felt John’s breath on his face, and closed his eyes. It would be so easy to say yes, and just call this one more fight put behind them.

“I feel like I have no options here, do I,” he asked, a conflicted expression playing on his face. He opened his eyes and permitted John to lay a small, swift kiss on his lips but stopped himself from returning it, because he knew this manipulative move too well. John was going to work on him through seduction, now, to end the discussion and get his way. It's what he always did.

Because, Paul thought ruefully, it always works. Resisting John Lennon was no easy thing for anyone, and Paul McCartney had no gift for it at all. Still, he meant to try. 

“It’s no good." He said. "I know how this plays out. No matter what I do it's going to be wrong. If I take you to yours, you’ll just pout all night and then punish Cynthia for not being me in the morning. And I’ll feel guilty about it, because I knew how it would be and did nothing to save her from it.”

“You're too right,” John said softly, nodding and putting his arms around Paul’s waist, pulling him closer. “I know I’m such a bastard to Cyn, and you know I’d break teacups and throw the toast at her if I am not with you in the morning. I can't help it.”

“And if I give in and take you to mine,” Paul continued, shaking his head, “you’re just gonna hate yourself for doing all this pleading and wheedling to get me to bring you home --”

“_You’re_ my home,” John repeated, bringing Paul to rest against him and tentatively nibbling at his neck. “Right here. We can sleep right here, in the car, and I’m home.”

“Stop,” Paul said softly. He pulled away from John’s nuzzling lips, needing to look at him, to look deeply into his eyes. Against his own better instincts, he could feel himself falling for it, all of it, the whole John-led campaign to win him over. “You’re going to hate yourself," he repeated. "And then you're going to take it out on me. You're going to pick apart my house. You're gonna say obnoxious things about Jane, and piss on and on about me living in London, because you resent it -- don't say you don't." He headed John off before he could utter the words, but softened the effect by bringing his hands up to Lennon's shoulders. "And then you'll rant some more, until you scare Thisbe.”

“I would never. I love Thisbe. I might do all of those other things, but I'd never terrorize wee Thisbe."

“Well, I guess that’s something, then,” Paul smiled. And that was it. He fell. John had charmed him with Thisbe, and there came the complete capitulation. Taking John’s face between his hands he kissed him sweetly, nipping a little at his lips. "I don't know why I give in to you, always. You're such a bastard. A toothache of a man, you are."

"I am, I know" John agreed. "And I'm sorry about it, love. I truly am."

"As long as you know it," Paul smirked. He kissed him again, venturing more deeply. He decided he’d keep doing that until John moaned into his mouth, which didn’t take long, and then he pulled away with a rueful smile. “And I guess -- as long as you love Thisbe, and all, mind,” he teased, “I guess I’ll have to let you in.”

“Oh, Callooh! Callay!” John said with a mischievous look. “And then I’ll let _you_ in!”

“Argh, Christ,” Paul rolled his eyes in disgust. “I should have seen that one coming.”

“You should see me coming!”

John’s appetite for adolescent wordplay made everything about their sex life ripe for double-entendre, no matter how lame or predictable. Paul was usually careful about how he phrased things for exactly that reason, but he’d slipped up.

“Sloppy of me,” he said regretfully. “Left myself wide open for that one. Oh no…” He groaned aloud as he knew John would run away with it.

“You don’t leave yourself wide open half enough for _this_ one," John obliged, "not enough for my liking, anyway."

“You’re getting predictable, love.” He pulled away, opening the car door for John and motioning him in.

“Just one more kiss?” John begged, raising his eyebrows.

“No,” Paul said firmly. “You’re a spoilt child, you are.”

“Aw, but _Daaddyyy_!”

Paul smacked John smartly on his behind, and kissed him quickly on the cheek, and mentally chiding himself for doing it. _This is how you tumble_, he said to himself. “Inside wi’ ye, then.”

Getting behind the wheel, he looked once again at John and shook his head, but more at himself than his mate. He was both mystified and genuinely fed up with his own inability to resist Lennon. “I'm going to regret this tomorrow, I know it. But, I am forever pleasing you, love, and really, I don’t know why, when you aggravate the heart and soul out of me.”

“When do I ever?” John wondered innocently.

“When do you _not?_ And I don’t understand you, either,” Paul continued, as he turned the key. “Why does it mean so much to you, what kind of sick bastard are you, to want to go home with someone you think _can’t love anyone_ and doesn’t love you.”

“That really hurt you didn't it? My saying that."  
  
Paul couldn't deny it. "Would you like to hear you're selfish and made of stone, John? That all you do is use people? I didn't." He glanced John's way. "I didn't like it, and I especially didn't like hearing it from you, of all people."

"It was a stupid thing to say, and cruel, I know," John admitted. "I don't know why I said it."

"I think you do." Paul said it gently.

His partner nodded his head, looking ashamed. "I was just...yeah, _jealous._ Everybody wanting you, loving you and fucking you in their heads, and I was lashin' out. I _don't_ think that about you, love. I don't, really. Truth is you're probably the lovingest person I know. You love everybody. And maybe too much. It drives me mad the way you just..."

John's voice trailed off. He had no way to describe what happened to him whenever he saw the rest of the world hungering after McCartney, and how easily Macca just rolled with it, managing to 'handle' people so smoothly, so casually, while it all ate John up inside and got him wondering whether Paul was 'handling' him, too, sometimes. _So fucking insecure, I am_.

The admission brought another dose of reality: All John Lennon wanted, he realized, was...well, _all_ of Paul McCartney. There was no way he would ever feel secure without it. 

And Paul would never give all of himself to John. He just wouldn't, John knew it. He wasn't sure Paul could give all of himself to anyone, because that was what he put into his music: All of himself, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. In truth, Paul was married to music before anything or anyone else. Before his family, before Jane. Before any of the probably hundreds of kids, okay, _scores_ of kids, he'd dropped around the world. Before John.

_How do I explain it to him without insulting him again?_ John thought. _It's not that he can't love anyone, or can't love me. It's just...we all get a piece of his love, we're all second-place or lower, after music._

John didn't know if he could stand it much longer -- to be second-place in Paul's heart or mind, not even to the music they shared, which, to his way of thinking, should be a product of their love, their children. And in a way their songs were their children, but they felt like illegitimate children, to John, bastards born of a union where only one heart and life was fully engaged while the other had long ago given himself completely over to something else, something deep and private and untouchable. Something no one could compete with. _It's like I'm like his mistress, and music is his actual wife. _

It never occurred to him to unpack that thought any further. He was still working out the problem of his mouth and the unfair, dirty stuff it had unleashed tonight. He'd been wrong to say Paul could not love. It wasn't true and he knew it. McCartney just couldn't love John to the extent John required. And whose problem was that, then, really? John's own fault, he knew. Just as he knew that however Paul proportioned out his love, John probably had the most of it, and the best of it, too.

How pathetic was this, he scolded himself. Here he was, John Lennon, leader of the biggest rock-and-roll act in the world, jealous finally, of the very _music_ inside his partner. The music and the partner, he had to admit, that helped make him everything he had become.

"Paul...truly, I'm sorry I said it. I was just -- ”

“_Drinking_, I know…” Paul finished. “But it did hurt, your saying it. You should know better.” He pulled out into the roadway, away from Weybridge and headed into London. "But let's just...let's just let this go, now, yeah?"

It was how every dust-up seemed to end between them -- with John hanging his head, needing forgiveness, like a naughty boy who'd broken a vase, and Paul dealing out absolution, saying "it's alright, lovie," -- sounding like his own mother and seeking to put it all behind them. It was not so much "Peace at any price," he thought, but certainly, "let's let it be, let it go away..." This donnybrook might have been the biggest fight they'd ever had, and Paul -- sensing that for once that he'd been fully heard -- felt the need to end it, and move on until things were normal, again.

For John, it took a little longer to feel right. He was still processing how and why he'd been so thoughtlessly vicious to the man he loved more than anyone in the world. “It’s just that…I get insecure,” John said after they’d driven a bit.

“I know. I know you do. I’m not sure why, though.” Paul glanced his way. “I’ve never lied to you, John, and I’ve never cheated on you.”

“I know it. I do know that, Macca.”

“Well, then? What is it? If I haven't left you by now, you know I'm not going anywhere. Why can’t you trust me, John, love?”

“It’s just…” Lennon let out an exasperated breath, rolling his eyes at his own feelings. “I’m going to sound like a fecking bird, but…well, Paul…you never say it anymore. That you love me. You used to, and now you don’t. You're off in London, with all your new friends, and you never tell me you love me anymore.”

Paul drove in silence for a mile or so, considering whether it was true, and realized John was right. And under the circumstances, he was right to be hurt. Paul had been living his own life, and neglecting something important, something he knew John needed. He'd been taking John's feelings for granted, and he knew all too well what that felt like. “I’m sorry," he said. "I hadn’t realized that I’d not said it in a while, but I guess you're right. I haven’t.”

"Not even when I say it to you..."

"You're right, I know." Paul repeated. "I'll do better, love." He glanced at John and offered an apologetic smile. "I'm glad you brought it up, you know. I hadn't realized... but I will do better."

“And you’ve stopped wearing your bracelet.” John sounded a little petulant, now. “I used to love seeing you wearing it. I'd see it and think, 'Yeah, he's mine, we're bound through that.' But you’ve stopped.”

“John... I lost it,” Paul reminding him with a wide-eyed glance. “It’s somewhere in the Bahamas. Lost it when we were shooting there. You know that. Did you forget?” He lowered his voice, dropping it to a register he knew John found sexy. “I actually was sort of wondering why you never replaced it.”

“I was waiting for you to ask!" John said, responding to Paul's tone, his own voice lowering. "I figured if you asked for a new one, it would mean you really _wanted_ to wear it. When you never asked, I just thought…you didn’t mind it being gone, like you were only wearing it to please me.”

“Christ, we sound pathetic,” Paul said with a rueful smile. “Like two repressed Northern men who don't know how to talk. Come on, John, you know I loved wearing it, loved always having it on me. I felt bound by it, too. But I could never bring myself to ask for a new one, because...well, I felt bad enough for losing it. Seemed wrong to ask for another.”

“Well,” John confessed. “I guess it doesn’t matter, you know. Because if you’d asked me to replace it, I’d have resisted.”

Paul frowned. “But why? You just said you missed me wearing it.”

“I know,” John said in a voice that sounded resigned. “I said I’d _resist_, and I would, at least for a little while. And then I’d probably end up getting another for you, because it would be better than nothing. But it wouldn’t be what I really wanted to give you. What I wanted to give you even back then, back when I gave you that lost bracelet.”

Paul stared, waiting for more, before looking back at the road. “Well, what did you want to give me, if not that?”

John’s sigh sounded like the longest and saddest song Paul had ever heard. “A _ring_, my love. I've never told you but...I’ve always wanted you to wear my ring. And I've always wanted to wear yours. I even found the one I wanted for you once, and I almost bought it. I should have. It was while we were in France last year -- at Cartier's, remember? There was this ring...white gold, with bits of amber and topaz. Like your eyes. Kind of birdy-looking, I guess, but it was so pretty, and I wanted..."

John bit his lip, remembering how frustrated he felt when he'd walked away from the store without the ring. "I'd wanted to get it for you, and have it engraved, '_til there was you..._' I know I always teased you about that song, but deep down I loved you singin' it, even back in Hamburg. Maybe especially there, where everything was so squalid and your voice was just so...so fucking clean and pure." He dropped his head. "I should have gone ahead and bought it, and surprised you with it. But you couldn't have worn it, anyway -- it was too much flash. Everyone would have wondered, and asked about it. And maybe you wouldn't have even wanted to wear it, not even around your neck, or something."  
  
Paul could see the regret in John's expression, in his tightly pressed lips. "Stupid, I am. Thinking of a ring like that. It'll never be possible."

They drove in a deep silence punctuated only by sighs, until Paul pulled off the road, into another clearing.

“Why are you stopping?” John wondered, looking around. “Are we having another fight? Are you angry at me?”

“No, baby,” Paul nearly growled as he reached for him. “Can't drive with my eyes all watered up, can I? And I can’t wait another ten minutes to kiss you.”

John’s acquiescence was smothered before he could get do more than murmur it.

“I do love you, you incredible idiot. You romantic head-case.” Paul breathed, hushing John’s response with another kiss. "I love you very much, Johnny. Always have." He pulled away, taking in John's besotted expression with a smile, and kissing him very gently once more.

"Would you have worn it, Paulie, if I'd given you that ring?" John asked quietly, feeling suddenly, sweetly wrecked by Paul's turnaround, by the tenderness of his gaze. "Around your neck, even? Just for me?"

"I would, aye, around my neck" Paul said in a soft voice as he nuzzled John, "And even in private, for you. But I'd want to give you one, too, you know. And you'd never be able to do the same, because of Cyn. Wouldn't be right." 

John closed his eyes and sighed, one hand going around Paul's neck, caressing his hair. "I know...I know it, baby, I'm sorry. I know sometimes I blame you when nothing's your fault. And I'm sorry for what I said tonight, I am. I don't deserve you..."

Paul drew his head back, smiling, and leaving a kiss on John's forehead. "Well, I don't know about that. Maybe you deserve a lot of me." He wiggled his eyebrows at John. "And more frequently."

John breathed scandalized breath that was wholly pretend. "Why, you dirty cad, you!"

Eyes crinkling as he smiled back at John, he leaned forward, giving a small nip to chin. "And I need to bite you, a bit, too...make you behave, since nothing else seems to do it. Unless..." Growing thoughtful, he began to pat himself down until he found a pen in his jacket pocket.

“Here, then, give me your hand,” he said. When a puzzled John held out his right hand, Paul chuckled and took the left instead, quickly drawing a thin sort of tube all around the third finger, and coloring it in.

He handed the pen off to John, raising his own left hand. “Now you do me. And don’t say you were already _planning to do_ me, or I should _do you_, or anything stupid like that. Just put one on my finger. And don’t say you’d like to put your ass on my finger.”

“You’re stealing all my good lines,” John smiled, as he bent to the task.

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, honey, but they’re not that good. Losing your edge in your old age.”

“Ah, sod off, Bunny." John was squinting as he worked, fully engrossed. "You wish you had half my wit.”

“Sure, an’ if I did, we’d both be quarter-wits, then, wouldn’t we?" Paul nudged John’s head affectionately with his own.

“Ooh, you Irish bastard!” John looked up, marveling. “You’ve bested me. But not at the task at hand. And speaking of which..."

"Yeah, finish my ring, already, you tosser. And I'll wear it. For you."

In another minute, John finished it with a flourish. He lifted Paul's hand to his lips, placing a sweet kiss on what he'd just drawn, as though kissing the ring could make it real. "Now we're married! Do you like it?”

Where Paul had drawn a simple filled-in and lazy sort of wedding band on John’s hand, John had quickly managed the equivalent of an Irish Claddagh ring, including a heart and crown, and small caricatures of the two of them -- a distinct JohnandPaul -- where the hands would ordinarily be. “A McLennon original,” John offered.

"_McLennon_. Cute." Paul looked down at it admiringly. “It’s lovely, John."

"I think you're supposed to kiss me, now," John said. "Doesn't someone say 'kiss the bride," at some point?"

"Are you my bride, then?" When John had kissed his ring, Paul's face had gone a bit soft with unexpected emotion. Now, as he frowned, he looked like a slightly puzzled puppy.

"If that's what it takes for a kiss, my husband." John smiled. "We can take turns bein' the bird, later. Consummations devoutly to be wished, and such."

"He's seducing me with Shakespeare," Paul murmured to the world as he leaned into a tender kiss, and then another. As they parted he looked again at his hand. "You did a nice job on this, Johnny. But you do realize you still owe me a wedding ring, yeah? You know that a Claddagh is only a ring of engagement, don’t you?”

“Aw, fuck me! I didn’t.”

“I will. In about 15 minutes," Paul smirked. "Wait til we get back home!"

"Home," John groaned in approval of the plan. "Where _you_ are." After a minute he took Paul's hand, squinting at the Claddagh he'd put there.

"So, I guess this means we're not married, after all?"

"Nope." Paul said. "You missed your chance, lad. We're not married, not yet. Maybe someday."

"Oh. Shit." John managed to sound authentically disappointed. In a way, he really was.

Paul squeezed his hand and brought it down to his lap, where he held it. "Don't worry, though, we're still gonna consummate the hell out of each other. And all night long, I think."

"But we're not married!"

"I know," Paul chuckled, feeling more cheerful than he had in weeks. "But you love me. And I really am _such_ a slut..." 

"Oh, I know it, my love," John squeezed back. "And all for me, I know."

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked how this turned out. Too much angst? Too much romance at the end? Let me know. Constructive criticism always appreciated. I'm still learning.


End file.
